UPDATED: Plugable Products on Mac OS X 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion)

Listed below are our latest updates about how to make your Plugable products work on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion with all the caveats shared by customers. If you read this post before and notice changes, it’s because we’ve revised our advice based on differences between our test results and what many customers were reporting. For now, in all cases we are recommending the solutions that have worked for everyone.

Any Plugable products not listed below have not yet been tested or have no Mac support (USB 3.0 graphics adapters, USB 3.0 docking station, Windows Easy Transfer cable).

Product
Type
Products
Tested
Drivers
Needed
Download Site/
Setup Notes
10/100 Ethernet Adapter USB2-E100 N Uninstall previously installed third-party ASIX AX88772 driver before upgrading 10.7 or 10.8, to use Apple’s built-in drivers.
Gigabit Ethernet Adapter USB2-E1000 Y Leave the Gigabit adapter unplugged. Go to network settings and delete any existing USB Gigabit Ethernet interfaces by highlighting and clicking the minus button.

Download and install drivers from:
plugable.com/products/usb2-e1000/drivers

After installation and reboot, plug in the adapter.

Go to network settings. If a new USB Gigabit interface hasn’t been created, then click the plus button, and add a new interface for the USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter.

Click the gear button, choose to set the service order, and drag the Gigabit Ethernet interface to the top of the list to make it your primary network connection. Approve the change to return to the main network settings screen.

Click Apply in network settings.

If the status in network settings goes green with a good IP address (not 169.x.x.x), the adapter is working properly.

USB 2.0 Graphics Adapters UGA-2K-A,UGA-165,
USB-VGA-165,
UGA-125
Y Uninstall any old DisplayLink drivers before upgrading from 10.7.x.After upgrade, download and install the production version of DisplayLink’s v1.8 driver (or later) for OS X at DisplayLink’s Mac driver page.

Note that the performance of USB graphics on Mac is not yet at the same level as Windows. And some customers have reported crashes and hangs after installing DisplayLink drivers on Mountain Lion. See DisplayLink’s Mac user forum for the latest details. There is a specific thread on possible causes of Kernel panics.

We are filing bugs with DisplayLink based on Plugable customer feedback. If your system is not performing properly once you have installed the latest DisplayLink drivers, please contact us at support@plugable.com for assistance.

USB 2.0 Universal Docking Stations UD-160-A, DC-125 See Notes Follow the instructions above for the 10/100 Ethernet adapter and the USB 2.0 graphics adapters.
Hard Drive Dock USB3-SATA-U3 N
Serial Adapter PL2303-DB9 Y https://plugable.com/drivers/prolific/ (Mac security settings must allow installation of executable files from anywhere)
Hubs, Switches, Extension Cables N 10.8 has a regression where USB Hard Drives attached to a Mac through a USB hub may report “drive wasn’t ejected properly” on return from sleep. We have customer reports of this issue in particular with USB 3.0 hubs like USB3-HUB4

Please feel free to comment here or e-mail us at support@plugable.com with your findings, questions, or problems. We’re here to help.

[usb2-e1000

19 comments on “UPDATED: Plugable Products on Mac OS X 10.8 (aka Mountain Lion)”

  1. Anthony Freeling

    I have the USB2-E1000. After installing Mountain Lion, this does not work. The network connection is in an “uncertain state”. It does not receive DHCP from the router. The ethernet lights flash, but it cannot even ping the router. So definitely not working. (Worked fine before the Mountain Lion upgrade). Help!

    • Aaron Knopf

      Sorry that the upgrade seems to have caused a problem. We are here to help.

      Can you open a terminal session and type the following?

      > kextstat | grep Gig [ENTER]

      Send the results to support@plugable.com with the subject “Kextstat results for Aaron.”

      Again, apologies that our reports about Mountain Lion don’t reflect your reality. I’ll work with you to get everything sorted and working as quickly as possible.

      Best Regards,

      Aaron
      Plugable Technologies

      • NM

        Same issue here. I have tried to uninstall your driver AFTER upgrading to ML and only get a 169.254 address.

        I ran your terminal text above and got this:
        108 0 0xffffff7f81481000 0x9000 0x9000 com.apple.driver.AppleUSBGigEthernet (2.0.4b1)

        • Aaron Knopf

          We’re still investigating why the 2.0.x version of the AppleUSBGigEthernet driver is working on some systems but not others. In the meantime, the solution that has seemed to work for everyone with this issue is to re-install the ASIX driver for the AX88178 chipset in the Plugable USB2-E1000 USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter from http://www.asix.com.tw/FrootAttach/driver/AX88178_Macintosh_10.4_to_10.7_Driver_v3.6.0_20111014.zip.

          If this solution does not work to get the Gigabit adapter functioning again on your Mac, please write support@plugable.com with details of the issues you are seeing. We apologize for any inconveniences that have been caused by non-functioning Plugable products after a Mountain Lion upgrade. We’re here to help.

          Best Regards,

          Aaron
          Plugable Technologies

        • Dennis

          Some more background.

          I have a brand new Retina MBP. It came with Lion pre-installed. I immediately upgraded to Mountain Lion. Then my USB2-E1000 arrived. The device was recognized but could not get a DHCP lease. Only after downloading and installing the driver did it work.

  2. Keith

    The driver link for the USB-serial adapter on the Mountain Lion page links to the Windows driver, not a Mac one. Does the 1.4.0 version Mac driver (which says Snow Leopard) work on 10.8?

    • jerome

      Hi Keith,

      We found that the Serial adapter did work with driver version 1.4.0 on our Mountain Lion 10.8 machine.

      Let us know if we can help.
      Thanks,
      Jerome.

  3. Joe

    The new driver for the Gigabit network adaptor, linked above, worked great. Thanks to Plugable customer support..i emailed them and had the fix the same day. Great support.

  4. Nicam

    Hi There

    The new driver works for me on Mountain Lion 10.8.1 only upon reboot. If I unplug it and replug it, it says not connected. On the device the green light is constantly lit, and the yellow one is blinking slowly.

    Any idea what’s the problem?

    • Bernie Thompson

      For the benefit of others – with 10.8.1, a 3rd party application — the Android File Transfer Utility — somehow gets in the way of Mac OS X network hotplugging, which will cause the behavior Pascal was seeing. Uninstalling it solved the issue for Pascal. We thank him for his patience while that was figured out!

  5. Eric Weiner

    External Drives connected to the USB 3.0 4 port hub do not reconnect when my macbook pro wakes from sleep.

    If either drive is connected directly to my macbook pro retina they reconnect as expected.

    I am using Mountain Lion OS.

    My Setup:

    2 external Seagate 2TB drives each in a Thermaltake Max 5g enclosure.
    Each drive connected to the Hub.
    Also connected to the hub is a Ethernet adapter (10/100) (which does reconnect upon waking from sleep).

    I will also say that the reconnection did not appear to be a problem under the Lion OS.

  6. Pingback: Article: Mac OS X 10.7.5 Update - Page 4

  7. jon

    I’m also using Thermaltake Max 5g enclosure and seeing the *exact* same issues. Whats more, it appears as though the drive goes into a continuous disk read frenzy…

  8. John

    I’m looking for a USB Graphics adapter for connecting a Late 2008 Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion with a Dell 2209WA monitor (1680 x 1050). USB 2.0 is sufficient, as the laptop doesn’t have 3.0. I’ve clicked the links for the products listed above, and all but the UGA-125 (which doesn’t support 1680×1050) have statements that “Mac is not supported due to significant limitations in the operating system.” Would any of your products actually work for my needs?

    • Patric Neumann

      Hi John,

      Thank you for showing interest in our products and for contacting us. This is a very delicate subject since we have a lot of customers that use Mac machines and have nothing but problems since upgrading to OS X 10.9 “Mavericks”. Since this update is a completely new kernel, the multi-monitor feature in general, is completely broken. We have a lot of customers that are now stranded with previously working hardware and Apple is to blame. They have not been working with us at Plugable Technologies or with DisplayLink (the company that writes the drivers) at all, although we have been submitting display related bugs (reference articles -> http://www.displaylink.com/support/ticket.php?id=354 + https://plugable.com/2013/10/22/multiple-monitor-issues-with-os-x-10-9-mavericks). In short, there is nothing we can do until Apple starts working with us.

      Kind regards,
      Patric
      Plugable Technologies

  9. adrian

    My mac has 10.15.3. I am trying to get the USB2.0 Sharing Switch working. Which driver should I download?

    Thanks

    • Mitchell F

      Hi Adrian, our Plugable USB 2.0 sharing switch (USB3-SWITCH2) does not require drivers. However, the device that is connected to the switch still requires its respective drivers, so we’ll want to shift focus there. Please feel free to follow up at support@plugable.com and we’d be glad to help. Thanks!

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